


Servitude

by bluelionsbish



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Emotional Hurt, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Forbidden Love, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentioned Black Eagles Students (Fire Emblem), Minor Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Nonbinary Character, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Romance, Run On Sentences, Soft Hubert von Vestra, add to the ambiance, platonic hubert/ferdinand, sad bois all around, would you look at that hubert loves someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 10:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21300839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelionsbish/pseuds/bluelionsbish
Summary: "I can't," he chokes, gloved hands wavering."Oh, Hubert," you whisper, "you must."
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Petra Macneary, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Hubert von Vestra/Original Female Character, Hubert von Vestra/Original Male Character(s), Hubert von Vestra/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	Servitude

**Author's Note:**

> what even is this chaotic mess i hate it--  
i went in for minor surgery the other day, and while i'm still in pain, the sedation helped give me some real ass vivid dreams. one was me dying bcs hubert stabbed me and then this thing was born. i did attempt to make this gender neutral, but the she's/hers kept slipping out. as always, no beta, so there might be a few in there that i didn't clean up.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: implied/referenced/evident suicide.
> 
> #nobetawedielikeglenn  
feed author please? give me pats and snuggles?

Hubert knows that the woman he serves is no longer Edelgard.

He hears it in her frantic mutterings and animalistic pacing.

He sees it as his fellow eagles urge him to steal away with them, in the middle of the night; in Bernadetta's tears and Caspar's iron-like grip.

He feels it in the way Petra cries out to her, as she weeps and begs her wife to come to her wits. He watches Aymr silence her pleas, and Petra's blood flows steadily from the steps of Edelgard's throne to his feet.

He believes that Edelgard is gone when she paves the roads of Enbarr with the lives of innocents. The city is red with sin and burning beneath despair.

Hubert is grateful that the eagles, _his comrades_, he realizes belatedly, have made it to safety. He trusts in the way they are blanketed to the east and north under Claude and Dimitri's reach. Hubert is the only one who remains. The only one who still willingly falls prey. He stays stagnant at her side.

"She will come _back_,” he excuses. He cannot abandon the one he has served and called companion, even though he knows in his heart she is too far gone; sees how her face cracks and her eyes become black, as her fingers elongate into claws and her screams become roars. There is nothing left of the little girl he met when he was only six years old.

And there, at the crumbling castle entrance, he sees you. Where the others should have stood, he only sees _you_. Hubert knows you're strong. You have been his confidante and closet ally over the years; he fears you know him better than Edelgard ever did. It is why you are confronting her when everyone else has fled, because you know he won't leave.

You try to bring Edelgard back into reality, back into _sanity_. But she's an ethereal force; godlike in strength and anchored in darkness. You don't fight her, even as she howls. You won't win. Neither of you can hope to stand against the beast that crawls in her skin.

She's calling for your blood.

Hubert can't disobey this order. Not this time, even though his heart is aching as you look at him with affection in your eyes.

He doesn't deserve you.

He's never deserved you.

But Edelgard is watching from her broken throne, rubble and dust raining from the sky, and Hubert knows he must end your life.

Though as he draws his dagger, as you willingly step forward, as Edelgard gnashes her teeth, he stills.

“I can't,” he chokes, gloved hands wavering.

“Oh, Hubert,” you whisper, “you must.”

He holds his dagger in his hand, tries to pull it away as you pull him towards you, and the knife lays waste to your skin.

Hubert wishes he could start his life over from the very beginning, wishes he could stop you from falling to the ground.

But he can't.

As Edelgard had poised, so many years ago, “I wonder how your life would have been different, had you not been bound to serve me.” He too, wonders this.

He wonders if there was a world in which he could have loved with all his heart, instead of having become so breathtakingly _heartless_.

He can't rip his gaze from your ruined form.  
Can't erase your dying gasp from his memory.  
Can't suppress his shudder as Edelgard wraps a talon around his shoulder and coos.

But then he's running, and she's laughing, and he can't hear anything other than the thrum in his veins and he _cries—_because you had left him when he had left you with no choice.

Edelgard would have had his blood had he not taken yours. And he _knows_ you knew this. He _knows_ you realized he would not be strong enough to kill you, so you had said goodbye with your embrace, and a knife in your heart.

Hubert is lucky Ferdinand finds him. Hubert is lucky the man has the humanity not to ask him. He doesn't ask him—not why he's here or what Edelgard is planning or where you are.

There is a look in Hubert's eyes that tells Ferdinand all he needs to know. He hangs his head, mouth downturned as he blinks away his tears.

Hubert believes he can start his life over. He sees you in the sky and knows it's true.

So, Hubert starts his life over, sinks onto Ferdinand's lance like his knife had sunk into your chest.

And he's bleeding out, tuning out Ferdinand's screams because this is war. And war isn't fair.

He embraces the light when it comes for him.

It sounds like you.

“Oh, Hubert,” it whispers, “you didn't.”

He laughs, “But I did.”


End file.
